Pre For Me

Palm Pre+ (Verizon) for me today. I've been carrying a Palm Centro as my combination cell phone/calendar/contacts/clock/music system/data caddy for the past year and a half or so. From the little I've played with it so far, the Pre does *not* feel like a Palm. It does feel like a slick high-tech device.

I've spent over 7 years learning all the Palm OS applications that are useful for the types of things I like to do. I hope it's quicker (and cheaper) to find and learn to use the best Pre software.

Compassion

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

-- Dalai Lama Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1935-), quoted in Meditations for Living In Balance: Daily Solutions for People Who Do Too Much (2000) by Anne Wilson Schaef

Text

I need a better word than unprecedented or amazing to describe what's happened with the text-message program.

-- Red Cross spokesman Roger Lowe, on a campaign that has brought in $22 million in pledges since the earthquake in Haiti, New York Times, 19 January 2010

There Comes A Time

Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?" But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never Be Afraid

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

-- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), civil-rights leader

No Bonus

$500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus.

-- Wall Street compensation consultant James Reda on Feb. 3, 2009, giving the New York Times a good example of just how totally out of touch the super-rich really are, Salon.com, "The decade's top 10 quotations", 1 January 2010

Quake

I'm still looking to understand the magnitude of the event.

-- Haitian President Rene Preval, 14 January 2010, on the 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti

2009 Mileage

For the year 2009, driving my 1999 Saturn which now has >217,000 miles, with past years' stats for comparison:

                  2009      2008      2007      2006    2009 delta  % delta
Total miles     : 27,307    24,346    25,847    25,111    +2957     +12.1%
Total cost      : $1,809.71 $2,188.79 $2,231.76 $1,942.72 -$379.08  -17.3%
Total gallons   : 793.73    686.27    812.14    776.47    +107.46   +15.6%
Avg gallons/day : 2.174     1.875     2.225     2.127     +0.299    +15.9%
Avg days/fillup : 4.9       5.3       4.7       4.9       -0.4      - 7.5%
Avg miles/day   : 74.81     66.52     70.81     68.80     +8.29     +12.4%
Avg cost/day    : $4.90     $5.92     $6.00     $5.27     -$1.02    -17.3%
Avg cost/gal    : $2.28     $3.14     $2.75     $2.50     -$0.86    -27.3%
Avg miles/gal   : 34.95     35.48     32.24     32.77     -0.53     - 1.5%

The stats are starting to look a little cramped. I'll hafta work on that.

MPG dropped by a fraction, but not by much; I can still claim my car gets 35mpg. The drop in cost for a gallon of gas surprises me -- cheapest year so far, despite the high miles. I ran up the most miles for a year, but not the most gallons of gas. Now I need to cut mileage to <25,000 again.

Getting On Top

He just needs a little more help getting on top of the plane now.

-- Sue Pitham, on the stroke that has slowed down 89-year-old Tom Lackey, who took up wing-walking over the English Channel at 160 miles an hour, New York Times, 8 January 2010

Sufficient Conclusions

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

-- Samuel Butler, Notebooks, Ch 1, "Life", 9

Suffer A Little

If you want your children to have a peaceful life, let them suffer a little hunger and a little coldness.

-- Chinese Proverb

Which Is This?

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

-- Zora Neale Hurston (1891-01-07 - 1960-01-28), American folklorist and author, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937)

Being Methodical

He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.

-- G. K. Chesterton, The Fad of the Fisherman (1922)

The Artist's Business

It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.

-- Romain Rolland (1866 - 1944), French writer, 1915 Nobel Laureate in Literature

Look It Over Carefully

After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.

-- Alfred Edward Perlman (1902-1982), American railway executive

MC

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Enough Is Enough

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

-- Lao-Tzu (BC 600-?), Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism

Live A Good Life

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

-- Marcus Aurelius (121-180), philosopher and writer

Contented Dazzlement

Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

-- Lewis Thomas (1913 - 1993), physician, author, Dean of Yale Medical School, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

Poet Tree

     AI
    POE
    GRAY
   DANTE
   HORACE
  KHAYYAM
  KALIDASA
 SOPHOCLES
 BAUDELAIRE
 SHAKESPEARE
     LI
     TU
     SU
ARISTOPHANES

Q. What is this curious list I see?
A. The answer is plainly, "Poet - tree".

-- Kay Haugaard, on the Word-A-Day mailing list

Alphabet Shop

appleman@ncsa.uiuc.edu

After 19 weeks, I now have a new gig. That's the longest break (by 3 weeks) that I've taken from full-time employment in 30 years.

I work for the Cyber Security Directorate of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, in the Institute for Advanced Computing Applications and Technology at the University of Illinois.

Or, as I tell my kids, I work for the CSD of the NCSA, in the IACAT at the UI, aka the Alphabet Shop.

http://security.ncsa.uiuc.edu/

Normal

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for -- in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

-- Ellen Goodman (1941-), American journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist

One Gift

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.

-- Bruce Barton (1886-1967), American author, advertising expert

Texting

People who have something really private to say probably shouldn't do it in a text on their cellphone.

-- Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group based in Washington, New York Times, 9 December 2009

Until The Day

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville

We Cannot Have Both

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

-- Abraham Flexner, educator (1866-1959)

Independently

One must be very naive or dishonest to imagine that men choose their beliefs independently of their situation.

-- Claude Levi-Strauss (28 November 1908 - 30 October 2009), French anthropologist, Tristes Tropiques (1955), Chapter 16 : Markets

Do Something

All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause -- there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once.

-- Joss Whedon (1964-), writer and film director

No Interest

The absence of a time frame for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.

-- President Barack Obama, 1 December 2009, in a speech announcing the addition of 30,000 troops to the fight in Afghanistan, coupled with a plan to begin removing troops in July 2011

A Village Of 100 People

If the world were a village of 100 people ....

6 people (all in the USA) would own 59% of all the village's wealth,
74 people would share another 39%, and
20 people would share the remaining 2%.

-- David Copeland, in Value Earth

Next Time

The next time it will be a far worse reality than a reality TV show.

-- Rep. Peter T. King, who called on Congress to investigate how 2 uninvited guests appeared at the White House for a state dinner while aspiring to be featured on "The Real Housewives of Washington", New York Times, 27 November 2009

Just To Be Alive

Gratitude, appreciation, giving thanks. No matter what words you use, they all mean the same thing. Happy. We're supposed to be happy. Grateful for friends, family. Happy just to be alive.

-- From "Grey's Anatomy"

Thanksgiving Dinner

Be glad you're not a turkey.

Motor City Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is not an anachronism whose time is past. It is much more than a holiday to celebrate a meal shared between the Pilgrims and Native Americans. It is a time to reflect and be thankful for what we have -- not for what we cherish, desire or envy.

-- Ted Nugent, America Rocks, 28 November 2002

Turkey

TURKEY, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.

-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

Where The Silence Is

Go to where the silence is and say something.

-- Amy Goodman (b. 1957), investigative journalist, columnist and author

Next In Importance

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

-- James A. Garfield (1831-1881), 20th President of the US, letter accepting the Republican nomination to run for President, 12 July 1880

Paid In Liberty

The price we pay for money is paid in liberty.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), novelist, essayist, and poet

Maneuverability

There won't be a lot of guilt-innocence maneuverability there.

-- Thomas H. Dunn, former defense lawyer for the Army, on possible defense strategies for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused in the Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, TX, New York Times, 16 November 2009

Tasted It

We got more than just a whiff. We practically tasted it with the impact.

-- Peter H. Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University, on a satellite crash that confirmed the presence of water on the moon, New York Times, 14 November 2009

Lifers

There are just over 100 people in the world serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as juveniles in which no one was killed. All are in the United States. And 77 of them are in Florida.

-- Adam Liptak, New York Times, 7 November 2009

Sesame Street

Sally, you've never seen a street like Sesame Street. Everything happens here. You're gonna love it!

-- Gordon Robinson (character), the very first line spoken on the very first episode, 10 November 1969. Sesame Street is the longest running children's program on US television.

In Sarah We Trust

Who calls a shot like that? Who makes a decision like that? It's a disturbing trend.

-- Sarah Palin, on a 2005 decision approved by President George W. Bush to put "In God We Trust" on the edge -- rather than the face -- of new presidential dollar coins, November 2009

Safe To Assume

Although CREW has been unable to uncover the demographic makeup of [these companies], it seems safe to assume the vast majority of their employees are not pregnant women, infants and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers.

-- Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, after more than a dozen companies were given the vaccines, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, 5 November 2009

Berlin Wall

Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten! (No one has the intention of erecting a wall!).

-- DDR State Council Chairman Walter Ulbricht, press conference, 15 June 1961, prior to the 13 August 1961 establishment of the Berlin Wall, which finally came down on 9 November 1989

Small Enough To Fit

I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.

-- DownsizeDC.org co-founder Harry Browne (1933-2006)

Not Evil

Mickey is never going to be evil or go around killing people.

-- Warren Spector, creative director of Junction Point, a Disney-owned game developer overhauling the image of Mickey Mouse, New York Times, 5 November 2009

Train Set

This is all happening because my father didn't buy me a train set as a kid.

-- Warren Buffett, joking about his decision to buy a railroad, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation, New York Times, 4 November 2009

Karzai Wins!

Anybody can win unless there happens to be a second entry.

-- George Ade (1866 - 1944), American writer, newspaper columnist, and playwright

At Once

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

-- Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), 30th president of the United States